“I happen to think that the case raises issues that require to be ventilated in public,” the judge said. “This is not just tittle-tattle stuff. There are very serious issues here. I dare say the publicity is extremely disagreeable to the father.”

He added that there is a “degree of admission” from Mohammed Al-Jeffery, who admitted to locking his daughter in his apartment when he wasn’t there and having “steel latticework” over the windows to prevent his daughter from shouting out.

Barrister Marcus Scott-Manderson QC, who is representing Mohammed Al-Jeffery, said the father strongly disapproved of the way she conducted herself and had said he would not “allow Amina to go back to a toxic lifestyle.”

Holman said Miss Al-Jeffery could be expressing a preference to the more “liberal lifestyle” of the UK.

“Her father is enforcing his point of view by locking her up,” he said. “The central issue for me is, is she able to appeal to this country of which she is a citizen and say ‘Help me?’”

Women and girls are seen as inferior to men in Saudi and have little rights in relation to family matters, violence and sexual violence, according to human rights group Amnesty International.